Ucanews.com reported the top court turned down the plea from Missionaries of Charity Sister Concilia Jan. 29 on grounds that police had not yet pressed charges in the case. However, the court left the door open for her to file another application and also told the police to file formal charges soon.

On July 5, Sister Concilia, who headed the Nirmal Hriday (tender heart) home for unmarried mothers in Jharkhand' s state capital, Ranchi, initially was remanded in judicial custody for 14 days.

The 61-year-old nun was arrested along with a staff member at the home following complaints that the staff member accepted money from a childless couple to give them a baby and then failed to do so.

Sister Concilia, who has diabetes, has been denied bail twice, prompting her plea to the Supreme Court.

"We feel very sad that an innocent and physically unwell nun is behind bars," said Bishop Theodore Mascarenhas, secretary-general of the Indian bishops' conference.

"We are pained that an aged innocent nun remains in jail when murderers and other hardcore criminals get bail," the bishop told ucanews.com.

The denial of the bail comes amid media reports that the Jharkhand state government has revoked the order's license to run the Nirmal Hriday home. Authorities also canceled licenses for 15 other child care centers run by other organizations, following a state-level investigation into children's care homes.

The nuns told ucanews.com on Jan. 31 that they have not received any official notification that their license had been revoked.

Christian leaders say projecting missionaries as criminals is a tactic used by Hindu groups in their attempt to make India a Hindu-only nation. They believe such cases will keep villagers away from missioners and Christian institutions.

Last summer, Ottawa constitutional lawyer Albertos Polizogopoulos and I were on Ottawa’s Sparks Street when we encountered a sign warning we were entering an abortion safe-access zone.

The marker, which might have been mistaken for a generic parking sign, wasn’t intended to alert citizen sensitivities to the gruesome procedure routinely occurring a few metres east. On the contrary, it was a declaration of abortion-provider triumphalism signifying the political power to control what is said and done on public streets near a private profit-making business.

Purely from a fundamental liberties perspective, it gave me a definite chill. Polizogopoulos responded with sharp-edged legal mockery.

“If I stand on this side of the sign,” he said, taking a position just outside the bubble zone, “my rights are still protected by the Charter and I can say what I want. If I stand on the other side of the sign, apparently my Charter rights no longer apply and I lose my freedom of speech. So, what happens to my Charter rights if I stand with one foot on either side of the sign?”

Where, indeed, are we all?

Little did Polizogopoulos know that, within a few months, he would be in the thick of a legal fight to protect an 83-year-old Jesuit priest from losing his Charter rights for daring to offer a sign of his beliefs on the “wrong” side of the sign.

Fr. Tony Van Hee will be in court Jan. 24 for the first stage in his constitutional fight against the safe access law. The elderly priest was arrested in late October while on a five-day thought-crime spree that apparently upset abortion providers at the Morgentaler clinic.

“The bubble zone law forbids you even expressing disapproval. But his signs didn’t mention abortion. They were about freedom of speech, which is why the law has to be challenged for being overbroad.”

Van Hee is famous for his pro-life stance. For almost 30 years, he maintained a vigil on Parliament Hill to protest abortion’s availability in Canada.

It’s a fair inference his reputation preceded him, which only compounds the absurdity and the injustice of prosecuting him. Over those decades on the Hill, potentates, prime ministers, MPs and the general public passed by his protest without a hint of Van Hee ever impeding anyone’s safe access.

What they got, if they chose to look, was a peaceful sign of one Canadian’s honest religious and political beliefs.

Are those beliefs now the purview of the police and courts? Polizogopoulos verbally shrugs.

“We don’t know. The Crown still hasn’t disclosed its case to us. It has an obligation to disclose, but so far we haven’t seen anything.”

Might that signal machinations are under way to drop charges before the case gets before a judge? Does it mean no Crown counsel wants to bring an 83-year-old priest into court to face six months in jail and a possible $5,000 fine for holding up a sign that promotes free speech?

Regardless of whether the case is quietly dropped, Polizogopoulos plans to find a way to continue fighting on constitutional grounds. He points out that the bubble zone law itself violates the fundamental freedoms our Charter guarantees.

He cites the example of a lawyer friend being told he could not stand in front of the Morgentaler clinic wearing a T-shirt that said “We Need A Law” — the slogan of a duly constituted pro-life lobby group. In other words, the bubble zone law now appears so omnipotent it even precludes Canadians democratically desiring passage of other laws.

If that is, in fact, the state of our rule of law, and if it’s allowed to prevail, it will be a clear sign that Polizogopoulos’ question about where we are has already been ominously answered.

SYDNEY – Asia Bibi has been released from death row and prison in Pakistan and is now under heavy protective guard in a secret location with her family, reported a longtime Catholic missionary involved with negotiations in Pakistan about her case.

"She's not incarcerated, not in jail. The decision of the Supreme Court of Pakistan given Oct. 31 was that she was be released immediately. She is being protected. Her security is obviously a matter of huge concern for the Pakistan government," Australian Columban Father Robert McCulloch told The Catholic Weekly, newspaper of the Archdiocese of Sydney.

Speaking in a telephone interview from Rome Nov. 1, Father McCulloch, the Columban procurator general in Rome, told The Catholic Weekly that the decision to free Bibi had also set a groundbreaking legal precedent for the country.

Bibi, a Catholic and a poor farmworker, was sentenced to death for blasphemy in 2010.

"I'm very positive about the situation and we can take a lot of heart from what new Prime Minister Imran Khan said," Father McCulloch said.

In a televised broadcast to the nation, Prime Minister Khan attacked Muslim fundamentalist leaders calling for Bibi to be killed following her successful appeal to the Supreme Court.

He told Pakistanis that Islamic hardliners were "inciting (people) for their own political gain", and said they are "doing no service to Islam".

"I think this is very important because -- given the prime minister's statements in the recent election campaign -- we never knew exactly where he stood on the question of religious freedom in Pakistan," said Father McCulloch, who spent 34 years in the country working in education and health care.

The Supreme Court's decision was extremely significant for other reasons, he said.

"A very important precedent in law has been established and set which will be to the benefit of the thousands who are incarcerated in Pakistan because of accusations of blasphemy," he said.

While Bibi is a Christian, the majority imprisoned under Pakistan's blasphemy laws are Muslims, whose cases often emerge from professional enmity, jealousy, business rivalry and other factors; human rights organizations have claimed for decades that Pakistan's blasphemy laws are regularly abused to settle vendettas.

Because the charges against her were not made under Shariah, but under a form of Westminster law where precedent is important, the Supreme Court's decision will now benefit many more people in a similar situation.

"She was suffering on behalf of many, many people who have been condemned, and her suffering will be a point for freedom for both Muslims and non-Muslims because of this case," he said.

"The Pakistan government, at the highest levels, had realized that the Asia Bibi case is crucial for the international reputation and moral standing of Pakistan -- and this has been reiterated by Pakistan's diplomats in many countries and government officials in Islamabad," Father McCulloch said. "It would have been a disaster for Pakistan if this appeal had not been upheld."

The priest was in Pakistan Oct. 4-22 and was involved in meetings and discussions in Islamabad with senior government ministers and legal representatives on the case.

He said that when Pakistan's Supreme Court announced Oct. 8 it had reached a decision but was reserving it, he concluded it was clear that Bibi would be released.

"What I've understood is that ... time was given to inform the military and (prime minister) and key departments in the federal government of the contents of the decision," Father McCulloch said.

"It ensured that the concerned, responsible parties had an opportunity to prepare to control the situation when the announcement was made -- that would have included the army," he said, adding that nothing of consequence in Pakistan happens without the consent of the military, a decisive influence in Pakistan's political dynamic.

The fundamentalist reaction against the decision to acquit Bibi has come from Tehreek-e-Labaik, an Islamic political party known for organizing countrywide protests in opposition to any change in the blasphemy law of Pakistan.

"That expected reaction came. Its leader came out and viciously attacked the Supreme Court, the army and parliament," Father McCulloch said.

"It was almost as if the authorities were waiting for him to make that sort of statement. It gives now those three institutions the opportunity to clamp down against this cancer of fundamentalist religious violence and opinion that's eating into the heart of Pakistan," he said.

It is said that significant numbers of Catholics have left the Church over the clergy sexual abuse crisis and the ensuing coverup. I cannot verify this since I do not know any Catholics who have made that decision. Nor have I read any news articles which quoted people who have left the Church or which provided analysis showing the emigration of disaffected Catholics.

Nevertheless, I accept that it is likely true that some, perhaps many, have left. I do know Catholics who walked away from regular church attendance, at least for a time, because of the Church’s treatment of women, perceived injustices experienced while working for the Church and anger over the closing of their parish church. For the most part, these departures are not the result of theological concerns, but rather with actions by those in positions of Church leadership.

In the light of these defections, I find it remarkable that, following U.S. President Donald Trump’s mockery of the testimony of purported sexual assault victim Christine Blasey Ford, there has been no suggestion of outraged Americans renouncing their U.S. citizenship. Indeed, the question of potential departures due to Trump’s harshly and deservedly criticized remarks has not even been raised.

Why would Americans reject their country because its leader trash-talked an apparent victim of sexual assault? Their allegiance to their nation goes deeper than their fidelity to the man who leads it.

One must ask then, why does the same principle not apply to the Catholic community? Why do people feel obliged to leave the Church because of the despicable actions of her leaders? Is allegiance to our nation greater than allegiance to God and God’s Church?

In fact, in almost all cases, it is. People who would never consider renouncing their citizenship do, it seems, feel free to walk away from the house of God. Our allegiance to the kingdoms of man is greater than our devotion to the reign of God.

This is precisely the misplaced commitment that Jesus challenged during His public ministry and for which He paid the ultimate price. Humans have a deeper tie to the community which they can see, hear and touch than to their bond with the God who is beyond all knowing. It seems we are not so different than those who put Jesus to death.

One source of this is the privatization of religion. Rendering unto Caesar has come to mean that worldly concerns eat the main course of the banquet of our lives, while Jesus gets the leftovers. Religion gets stuck in a small corner, never being allowed to touch the great movements of our lives and of history.

Yet, if we truly understood what God is — that God is — that He is the ultimate ground of all that exists, that He is the core of why I and everyone else lives and breathes, then we would constantly seek the eternal in every pebble, leaf and human emotion. That we don’t is the clearest sign that our eyes are glued to appearances rather than to reality.

Jesus opened the eyes of the man born blind (John 9). But instead of inspiring faith and new vision in the man’s family and among the religious leaders, the miracle brought recriminations and fear. A vision of reality led to acrimony and division, rather than peace and harmony. After the formerly blind man proclaimed his faith, Jesus told him, “I came into this world for judgment so that those who do not see may see, and those who do see may become blind” (9.39).

Would that all receive and accept the gift of a vision of reality as did the man born blind. Would that all see the divine reality hidden behind the thin veil of things and events.

If that were so, we would understand tribes and nations as arbitrary constructs, and our allegiance to them would be conditional. As well, we would see God’s reign as the true reality, a hidden reality, but also the ultimate one. On one hand, our allegiance to the sacramental community that is our source of vision would never be in doubt. On the other, we would see that all human organizations are coloured by greed and the quest for power.

Have no faith in Herod and his minions. Accept, instead, the divine vision which Jesus gives through His Church. Only there can be found the gifts of life and light.

MANCHESTER, England – The United Kingdom's Supreme Court has upheld the right of a bakery to refuse to make a cake emblazoned with a slogan in support of same-sex marriage.

In a unanimous ruling, five judges overturned a series of decisions by the lower courts to conclude that "nobody should be forced to have or express a political opinion in which he does not believe."

The decision settles a case brought by Gareth Lee of the LGBT group QueerSpace in June 2014 against Ashers bakers, which is based in Northern Ireland, the only part of the U.K. in which same-sex marriage is illegal.

The bakery, owned by a Christian family, had turned down Lee's request to make a cake depicting Bert and Ernie, the Sesame Street puppets, and a slogan stating: "Support Gay Marriage."

Judge Brenda Hale, court president, made a distinction between the withholding of services from a person on the grounds they are gay and the refusal to promote political opinions the service provider does not share.

"It is deeply humiliating, and an affront to human dignity, to deny someone a service because of that person's race, gender, disability, sexual orientation, religion or belief. But that is not what happened in this case," she said giving the judgment in court in London Oct. 10.

"As to Mr. Lee's claim based on sexual discrimination, the bakers did not refuse to fulfil his order because of his sexual orientation -- they would have refused to make such a cake for any customer, irrespective of their sexual orientation," she added.

According to U.K. media reports, the case has cost an estimated £500,000 (US$660,000), but the Equality Commission of Northern Ireland, a government body, had used public funds to pay for Lee to pursue the bakery through the courts.

Afterward, Lee said in a statement outside the court that the refusal of Ashers to make his cake "made me feel like a second-class citizen, and the judgment today tells me that that is OK."

Daniel and Amy McArthur, the owners of the bakery, also issued a statement outside the court, saying they were "grateful to the judges and especially grateful to God."

"We did not turn down this order because of the person who made it, but because of the message itself," said McArthur, an evangelical Christian.

"I know a lot of people will be glad to hear this ruling today, because this ruling protects freedom of speech and freedom of conscience for everyone," he said, adding: "We want to move on from this now, and I'm sure Mr. Lee does too. ... Let me just finish by saying that he will always be welcome at any of our shops."

The case bears similarities to one in the U.S. that involved a Colorado baker who refused to make a cake for a same-sex couple.

In a 7-2 decision, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the Colorado Civil Rights Commission had violated the constitution's protection of religious freedom in ruling against the baker, Jack Phillips, a Christian who said his beliefs would not allow him to create a cake honoring the marriage of Charlie Craig and David Mullins.

Appeals in similar cases in the U.S. are pending, including another case at the Supreme Court from a florist who did not want to provide flowers for a same-sex wedding.

The State of Alabama has had a controversial relationship with the Ten Commandments. Not so much its teachings but its physical representation.

It started with Roy Moore, then the chief justice of the Alabama Supreme Court in the early part of the last decade, installing a 5,000-pound statue of the two tablets in front of his workplace.

The monument attracted lawsuits and eventually led to a higher court decision to remove the giant slabs. The federal court said it violated the constitutional prohibition on showing favour to one religion over another and the mixing of church and state. Moore refused to yield and lost his job in 2003.

In my view the federal court erred. Mentioning “God” does not violate the principle of church and state. Besides, God does not only belong to Christians.

The second paragraph of the Declaration of Independence states: “All men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness.” God is also mentioned in the pledge of allegiance as in “one nation under God…”

Unfortunately Moore, recently a failed Republican senate candidate, made an argument for the monument based in part on poor history. He justified its placement by saying the United States was founded on the life of “Jesus Christ.”

Moore seemed to forget that there are other monotheistic religions that believe in God but not Christ.

The founders of the United States were often more agnostic than religious. Thomas Jefferson, for example, rewrote the New Testament by taking out all the miracles of Jesus.

It would have been more accurate to say that the United States was built on the idea that no person or group of persons could ever hold absolute power that could result in stripping citizens, believers and atheists, of their God-given rights.

Now the Ten Commandments are back in the news, as Alabamians will vote in the November election to reinstate the tablets.

I hope the monument is reinstated. And I wish that would happen everywhere, even in secular Canada.

There is a genius to the Ten Commandments — a plan to create a harmonious society full of peace and respect to benefit all.

For example:

“You shall not covet your neighbour’s house; you shall not covet your neighbour’s wife, or his manservant, or his maidservant, or his ox, or his ass, or anything that is your neighbour’s.”

In an RCIA class years ago one female catechumen said she disagreed with this commandment because she thought her male neighbour was hot. Fortunately she was not on Mount Sinai when Moses was handed the tablets.

But think seriously about this for a moment. The prohibition seems quaint and puritanical, right? What is the harm of checking out the good-looking hunk of a husband or his beautiful wife? It is just looking, right?

But what if your wife or husband sees you? Or what if the neighbours see you? You have now sown discord. Suddenly you are making people uncomfortable. You have become that slightly creepy person who likes to leer.

Fortunately, most of us will never have a reason to envy our neighbour’s ox or ass. I believe noise bylaws would prevent that. But we could spend a lifetime jealous of any number of things. Jealousy of goods is poison. It put material good on a pedestal and forgets that human beings are more than the sum total of their goods.

“You shall not bear false witness against your neighbour.”

Most people would never do this. Or at least they think they would never do this. Rather, we engage in what we think of as harmless gossip. Gossip too is poison: once released it can never be retrieved. That is why it is mortal sin, not a harmless pastime.

The prohibition on murder and theft may seem obvious but look around the horrors still taking place in the world and in our own city. Is it possible that everyone needs a reminder?

Even honouring the Sabbath is beneficial even if not used for worship. Imagine a world where all of us are workaholics: no time for family or friends or time to simply unwind. There are already too many miserable workaholics who are headed for burnout or worse.

Of course, taking God out of the Ten Commandments is absurd. It is He who gave us this blueprint for a good life, a holy life. He is the author. Every author deserves credit.

That idea of a creating deity still holding us in existence is part of the history of the United States and even Canada. Our Constitution states in its preamble: “Whereas Canada is founded upon principles that recognize the supremacy of God and the rule of law.”

Rather than fold to atheists and secularists, the people of Alabama and all believers should fight to keep God in the picture. After all, where would we be without Him?

(Lewis is a Toronto writer and regular contributor to The Catholic Register.)

OTTAWA – Trinity Western University’s decision to drop its mandatory community covenant has left religious freedom advocates wondering how it will impact the future of their cause.

TWU’s president Bob Kuhn said the private evangelical Christian university has made no plans to re-start its pursuit of a law school — a proposal that had been at the centre of a long-running legal battle with several law societies.

In June, the Supreme Court of Canada upheld decisions by the Law Society of British Columbia and the Law Society of Upper Canada (Ontario) not to accredit the proposed law school because the school’s covenant — which among other things, required students to refrain from sexual activity outside of traditional marriage — was deemed discriminatory against non-heterosexual students.

The outcome was seen as a blow to religious freedom by the many groups that intervened in the case, including the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops, the Archdiocese of Vancouver, the Catholic Civil Rights League, the Evangelical Fellowship of Canada (EFC) and the Canadian Council of Christian Charities.

The school dropped its covenant for students on Aug. 9, though Kuhn said the decision had been under discussion for some time, even before the court’s decision. The timing of the announcement had to do with wanting the policy in place for the start of the academic year in the fall, he said.

Kuhn said pursuing a law school is “not on the list for immediate priority.”

The high profile of the TWU case led to a “lot of misinformation” about the university, that it “discriminated” and “did not permit gays to attend,” which was not true, Kuhn said. “No one is refused entry based on their belief system, sexual orientation or other issues.”

The Supreme Court of Canada decision “provided some guidance, or at least a reference point for pursuing this,” he said.

The covenant remains in place for faculty and staff and “in our commitment to a biblically-based evangelical Christian perspective,” he said.

Archbishop J. Michael Miller of Vancouver said he hopes TWU will go ahead with its proposed law school. He

The archbishop said dropping the covenant should make it easier for the proposed law school to get accreditation from the B.C. and Ontario law societies and for TWU to find support from the courts.

“They (the law societies) might find new grounds but I think it’s going to be harder because they argued heavily on the grounds of the covenant,” he said. “They didn’t want to try to argue that religious institutions had no right to a law school. To me, that doesn’t preclude the possibility they might come forward with other arguments.”

“Now that TWU has removed the mandatory nature of its community covenant — the sole objection of both the court and law societies — will regulators of the legal profession welcome a law school at the evangelical Christian university if TWU resurrects its proposal?” asked former Religious Freedom Ambassador Andrew Bennett, the director of Cardus Religious Freedom Institute.

“Or, will they find new grounds to object to the creation of Canada’s first Christian law school?”

Bennett reiterated his criticism of the Supreme Court’s “narrower, truncated view of the fundamental right to freedom of conscience and religion” in its TWU decision.

“This raises questions about how governments, other state and quasi-state actors in Canada will respect the rightful place of faith-based institutions in the public square,” he said.

Albertos Polizogopoulos, a constitutional lawyer who represented the EFC in the TWU cases, noted in an article for Convivium.ca the division in the Christian legal community following the decision to drop the covenant.

“Some disapprove of the decision and ask why TWU didn’t simply make the community covenant voluntary years ago, instead of spending years and millions of dollars fighting a legal battle that it ultimately did not need to wage,” he said. “Others say that TWU fought the good fight, lost and now is simply responding to the Supreme Court’s decision in an attempt to preserve its institution and community.”

Kuhn said some of the criticism of TWU for dropping the covenant reflects an “oversimplification” of a complex legal case reflected in the Supreme Court’s TWU decision.

WASHINGTON – A Novena for the Legal Protection of Human Life is being led by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. Catholics are being encouraged to take part ahead of the Senate confirmation hearings for Judge Brett Kavanaugh’s nomination to the Supreme Court.

Every Friday, those who have signed up to the Call to Prayer program will receive the day’s prayer intentions by email or text message.

Senate confirmation hearings are set to begin in September, and there are expectations that Kavanaugh could be confirmed by the time the Supreme Court begins its next session in October. Kavanaugh’s nomination was welcomed by Catholics and pro-life groups who hope he could form part of a majority on the court in favor of overturning controversial abortion decisions like Roe v. Wade.

Roe, along with the companion decision in the case Doe v. Bolton, found a legal right to abortion throughout all nine months of pregnancy, regardless of circumstances.

The novena is tied to the confirmation process and the prayers of Catholics are important, Greg Schleppenbach, associate director of the USCCB Pro-Life Activities Secretariat, told CNA. He predicted that the confirmation process will be “very contentious,” with much of the debate centered around the issue of abortion.

"As we've already seen, the pro-abortion side is making this all about Roe v. Wade. It will clearly be contentious on that issue alone and perhaps others. But certainly, the other side has been making Roe vs. Wade a central issue, if not the central issue, in this confirmation process."

Schleppenbach hopes that the novena and prayer initiative will help teach the public and Congress about what the Roe decision and its effects have actually meant in the United States.

The novena “presents an opportunity for us to educate the public on Roe v. Wade, and to urge them to pray for this very important intention [life] that transcends even this particular nomination,” he told CNA.

"One of the things we know about public opinion, about public knowledge, is that there's a lot of misunderstanding about how radical Roe v. Wade is.”

Schleppenbach believes that recent polls indicating a high level of support for the decision are misleading, as most simply do not know what exactly overturning Roe would mean.

This prayer effort will go on even after Kavanaugh’s confirmation process ends, with hopes that this is just the beginning of a shift toward a culture where “unborn children are protected in law and welcomed in life.”

The Novena for the Legal Protection of Human Life is a “very concrete and effective way” for those who are concerned about human life to combat the “culture of death,” said Schleppenbach.

“The fact that this effort focuses on and encourages people to pray and to fast is critically important. It is absolutely one of the most productive, effective pro-life actions that we can take,” he told CNA.

“I very strongly encourage everyone to participate in the prayer and fasting, and to utilize the educational materials on Roe, sharing them with others."

The novena begins Friday, August 3, and information on how to take part is available from the USCCB website.

You could almost hear the champagne corks popping below the border when U.S. Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy announced his resignation.

For those in the United States who oppose abortion, the dream of overturning Roe v. Wade suddenly seemed within reach.

In 1973 the court upheld a women’s right to have an abortion in the first trimester. It was a decision that New York Times columnist Ross Douthat recently called our “inhumane abortion settlement” and added ridding the country of this odious decision could “save our culture, if it’s ever to be saved.”

Many Americans who voted for Donald Trump were willing to overlook his personal failings for the hope of a conservative, pro-life Supreme Court. In 2017 Trump appointed conservative Neil Gorsuch, who replaced the late Antonin Scalia. Now with the nomination of Brett Kavanaugh, a Catholic, the court will have a conservative majority — assuming the Senate confirms him, which is highly likely. A number of pro-life groups noted their approval at Trump’s selection.

“Judge Kavanaugh has a solid record of protecting life and constitutional rights,” Catholic Medical Association President Peter T. Morrow said in a release.

“Judge Kavanaugh will be an originalist Justice, committed to the text of the Constitution and to the rule of law, including legal protections for human life,” said Catherine Glenn Foster, president of Americans United for Life.

So does this mean that abortion could become illegal in the U.S.? Or is the cheering premature?

No one is really sure what Kavanaugh will do from the bench or even what he thinks of Roe. In 2006 at a Senate hearing for his nomination as a circuit court judge, he was pressed by Democrats to explain his position on abortion. But he refused to give his personal opinion: “If confirmed to the DC Circuit, I would follow Roe v. Wade faithfully and fully. That would be binding precedent of the court. It has been decided by the Supreme Court,” he said.

Given the history of the court, his comments might mean a lot or nothing at all. Justice Kennedy, a conservative, voted to make same-sex marriage legal. No one could have predicted that.

Right after Kennedy resigned, and before Kavanaugh was nominated, the Wall Street Journal wrote an excellent editorial about how for years liberals and pro-abortion activists have gone into a tizzy with every new court appointee. Yet, for all that angst, little has changed.

“The liberal line is always that Roe hangs by a judicial thread, and one more conservative Justice will doom it. Yet Roe still stands after nearly five decades. Our guess is that this will be true even if President Trump nominates another Justice Gorsuch. The reason is the power of … precedent, and how conservatives view the role of the Court in supporting the credibility of the law.”

It continued: “No one on Mr. Trump’s list of nominees will claim to want to overturn Roe — and not because they are lying. In their caution and deference to precedent, they will be showing proper conservative respect for the law and the reputation of the court.”

For the sake of argument, suppose the court gets a chance to overturn Roe. What then?

The first thing to note is that while Roe made abortion legal, overturning it will not make abortion illegal. It will simply mean that states will get to choose what to do.

It is likely that about 18 to 20 states will either make it illegal or put huge restrictions on procuring abortion. That means for the vast majority of states it will be business as usual. It also means that those seeking an abortion in states with strong restrictions will simply go to another state.

There is also the question of how far those 18 to 20 states will go. Politicians seem to like to be re-elected and they might think twice when they study recent polls.

A Pew Research Center poll found last year that nearly 70 per cent of Americans support Roe, including a slim majority of Republicans.

Another Pew poll that same year found 70 per cent of white Evangelicals wanted Roe gone while 53 per cent of Catholics supported Roe. Also supporting Roe were 55 per cent of black Protestants and 67 per cent of white mainline Protestants.

You could expect that in the aftermath of Roe being overturned, states that ban abortion would face unprecedented political battles. Yet that may be the best argument for overturning Roe.

“Somewhat paradoxically, the way to make abortion less contentious is to throw the matter back to the states so that people can argue about it,” wrote Megan McArdle in the Washington Post. “Debating the difficult decisions regarding gestational age and circumstances would force people to confront the hard questions that abortion entails….”

This battle is not running out of gas anytime soon.

(Lewis is a Toronto writer and regular contributor to The Catholic Register.)

WASHINGTON – President Donald Trump announced July 9 that his nominee for the Supreme Court is Judge Brett Kavanaugh, a federal appeals court judge in Washington and a Catholic who once clerked for retiring Justice Anthony Kennedy.

"What matters is not a judge's personal views but whether they can set aside those views to do what the law and the Constitution require," Trump said in his announcement at the White House, adding: "I am pleased to say I have found, without doubt, such a person."

He said the nominee has "impeccable credentials" and is "considered a judge's judge."

"I am grateful to you and I am humbled by your confidence in me," said Kavanaugh, who was standing near his wife and two daughters.

Kavanaugh spoke about his Catholic faith, saying he tries to live by the motto instilled in him by his Jesuit high school: "be men for others." Kavanaugh, like Justice Neil Gorsuch, attended Georgetown Prep, a Jesuit boys school in Maryland. He also pointed out that his former pastor, Msgr. John Enzler, was in the audience. He said he he used to be an altar boy for him and now the two serve the homeless together. The priest is the president and CEO of Catholic Charities of Washington. Kavanaugh also gave a shoutout to the girls basketball team at his parish which he coaches. He said the team has nicknamed him "Coach K," the name given to Duke basketball's head coach Mike Krzyzewski.

He also told the group gathered the East Room of the White House that he is "part of the vibrant Catholic community in the D.C. area," and added that "members of that community disagree about many things, but we are united in our commitment to serve."

Kavanaugh said if he is chosen to be on the Supreme Court, he would "keep an open mind in every case" and "always strive to preserve the Constitution of the United States and the American rule of law."

Immediately after Justice Anthony Kennedy announced his retirement June 27, Trump said he would move quickly to nominate a replacement, saying he would review a list of candidates from the list he had to fill the seat now held by Gorsuch after the death of Justice Antonin Scalia.

Kennedy is one of five Catholic justices on the Supreme Court along with Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito and Sonia Sotomayor.

Kavanaugh, 53, is a Yale Law School graduate who currently serves on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, where he has authored more than 280 opinions. He was part of the Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr's Whitewater investigation, which ultimately led to President Bill Clinton's impeachment by the House and acquittal by the Senate.

His biography on the court website notes that he is a regular lector at his church, the Shrine of the Most Blessed Sacrament in Washington. He also volunteers for the St. Maria's Meals program at Catholic Charities, has coached CYO, tutors at the Washington Jesuit Academy and belongs to the John Carroll Society, a group of Catholic lawyers and professionals.

He dissented from a recent ruling by the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals that a teenager in an immigrant detention center was entitled to seek an abortion. He claimed the decision would give immigrant minors a right to "immediate abortion on demand," but urged the government to transfer her to private custody so she could do "as she wished."

Kavanaugh also dissented from a majority decision of the D.C. Circuit that rejected a request from the Archdiocese of Washington and Priests for Life to have the full court review their challenge to the Affordable Care Act's contraceptive mandate.

He said that "the regulations substantially burden the religious organizations' exercise of religion because the regulations require the organizations to take an action contrary to their sincere religious beliefs." But he also wrote that the government "has a compelling interest in facilitating access to contraception for the employees of these religious organizations" and should "achieve it in other ways."

Two of the other judges reported to be top picks as nominees are also Catholic: Judges Amy Coney Barrett and Thomas Hardiman. Judge Amul Thapar, on a broader top list, is also Catholic.

The nominee must be confirmed by the Senate in order to have a seat on the Supreme Court. The Senate Judiciary Committee will hold hearings questioning the nominee and if the committee approves, a vote for or against the nominee goes to the full Senate floor and must be approved with a simple majority or 51 votes.

Reaction to Kavanaugh's nomination was pretty much divided along party lines.

Sarah Pitlyk, Kavanaugh's former law clerk, praised Trump's selection. She is special counsel for the Thomas More Society, a national nonprofit law firm dedicated to causes related to life, the family and religious liberty.

"Judge Kavanaugh has a clear, consistent and solid record on the issues that matter most to social conservatives. He has repeatedly taken conservative stands and has fearlessly defended his textualist and originalist philosophy," she said in a July 10 statement.

"He is a good and decent man who will never waver in the face of pressure from any quarters. He is exactly what constitutional conservatives want on the Supreme Court," she added.

The Catholic Democrats organization was not pleased with Trump's choice, saying that if he is confirmed, he would make the court "significantly more conservative."

In a July 10 statement, it said said had "grave concerns" about Kavanaugh, primarily because he was on a list of 25 judges compiled by the Federalist Society, which the Catholic Democrats describe as a group that "advances a conservative ideology that devalues civil rights, labor rights, environmental protection, gun safety, and federalism while advancing business interests."

"No one can predict precisely how Judge Kavanaugh will vote, but the Federalist Society's stamp of approval and his judicial record tell us that he will likely advance a pro-business agenda at the expense of workers and the most vulnerable in our society," said James Roosevelt Jr., a board member of Catholic Democrats.

Initial reactions to Kavanaugh's nomination were somewhat muted from some who felt another top nominee, Barrett, would do more to overturn Roe v. Wade, the Supreme Court decision legalizing abortion.

The National Right to Life Committee tweeted a note of thanks to Trump after the nominee was announced, and the Susan B. Anthony List, a nonprofit group that seeks to end abortion by supporting pro-life candidates, described Kavanaugh as an "outstanding choice."